Chateau Romani
by Dharja
Summary: Semi-AU. CremiaxLink. Getting ready for the Carnival of Time is tough work, but Cremia is sure they'll get their work done in time. What's with the creepy moon getting so close? And what's with the boy in green?
1. Day 1, Part 1

_**A/N: Have had an urge for LOZ stuff lately, not sure why. Been a couple years since I've played Majora's Mask, but it's been on the mind lately a whole bunch. This will be a CremiaxLink pairing mainly, KafeixAnju on the side, and Romani with a small crush on Link. There's also some unrequited KafeixCremia sneaking in every once in a while. I'm messing with their ages, and even then I'm not really sure what the canon ages for them were. Cremia just turned 17, Links 14 - Let's just say he hasn't hit that amazing growth spurt just yet - and Romani is 12.**_

_**It's been AGES since I've played the game (though I am tempted to dig it out of my closet and power up the 64 to go through it again) so if I get something wrong, sorry! I'm going off a combination of canon and my own ideas for how things should go.**_

_**I also admit I am quite horrible at both grammar, spelling (it slips past me!) and commas I overuse quite a bit. Forgive me!.**_

_**Also, I haven't decided if I want Link to speak or not. I'm still debating.**_

_**Going between writing this and fixing up my HPxTwilight crossover story I posted…. A extremely long time ago. Plot holes are my enemy**_

_**Doesn't help when you don't have any fanfic writing friends either ;-;**_

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**Cremia's POV.**

"CUCCCCCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Cuc.. cuc.. CUCCCCCCCCOOOOOOO!"

With a small groan I rolled over in my bed, reaching up to rub at my eyes as I opened them for the first time that morning. It felt like I had just went to bed ten minutes ago instead of a few hours ago, and the exhaustion tugging at my bones made me want to throw one of my pillows out the window at the innocent Cucco just doing his normal routine. My sister - Romani - also rolled over in her bed, but didn't wake, instead grabbing her pillow and curling into it.

Moving into a sitting position, I rubbed at my eyes again to get the last of the sleep out of them. I'd love to do nothing but take a few more hours of sleep, but I knew I could not due to the combination of ranch life always started early in the day as well as we we're almost overloaded with things that had to be done in time for the upcoming Carnival of Time. Counting today, we had three days total until the Carnival, and I had already begun a small attempt at organizing what we would get done each day in preparation.

Standing and looking over at my sister, I decided it wouldn't be too harmful to let her sleep in a little longer. As I took a step to leave, my foot connected with something soft, and glancing down I let out a small laugh as I realized it was Romani's favorite stuffy. It was a small blue colored Cucco that was a gift from a family friend given to Romani when she had turned six. Picking the blue Cucco up I quickly looked it over before turning and setting it down in the crook of her arm, it resting between her and the pillow she was clutching. She let out a small noise before tightening her grip on the pillow, the Cucco getting squashed to her as she moved.

It took me a few moments to gather fresh clothing for the day from the dresser we shared, and then with a contented hum I headed towards the bathroom to get ready.

As I waited for the tub to fill and the heater to warm the water, I went over a mental checklist of the things I wanted to get out of the way first today. We needed to collect the Cucco eggs, as well as make sure they were packaged carefully enough so they would survive the delivery trip to the town in the afternoon. I know Grog was rather proud of both his fully grown cuccos for their egg laying skills, as well as the small collection of Cucco chicks he had managed to catch hatching just a week ago.

Turning back to the tub, I deemed it full enough and turned the valve to shut the water off. Leaning against the sink counter, I crossed my arms in front of me, one hand coming up to rest on my chin. The next thing we needed to do was check in on our cows, as we've been locking them up in the barn from late afternoon to early morning. While the cows have had less time to graze as they'd like, as we only take them out for a few hours each day, it was a necessary precaution as last month Romani had come hollering into the house one day at lunch saying our bottle collection had been damaged and a cow was missing.

Not only that, but spoiled bottles of milk had been tossed around near the entrance to the Ranch, the number of bottles and their foul-smelling contents rising in number as the days went on. So, we moved the cows into the barn when the light began to dim, and let them back out in the morning when it was bright enough.

After removing my dirty clothes and tossing them into the hamper next to the sink, I climbed into the finally ready bath. As I relaxed in the water, I heard a small 'thunk' from the next door and had to cover my mouth with a hand to keep my laugh from getting out. Romani wasn't the most graceful of sleepers, and would occasionally roll out of bed and start her day off by saying hello to our wooden floor. She began to curse quite loudly, and I raise both of my eyebrows when I heard her say some select words I knew I hadn't taught her to say.

She must've been spending more time with Mamamu Yan than I thought she was. Glancing over to the side of the tub, I reached for my well used bar of soap, only to pause. The last time we had gone into town together on a simple day out she had spent her saved up allowance to buy me a gift of handmade, rather expensive soap. It was the kind of soap where the longer you used it, the more the smell 'became' part of your skin, lingering on further after each use and wash, as well as making your skin soft. It also smelled of a combination of oranges and cinnamon, which I had to admit, was a pleasant scent. I had yet to use it, mostly because I didn't want to waste such a fine gift on my work-roughened skin.

Making a quick decision, I grabbed hold of it and brought it closer to me, looking it over. It couldn't hurt just to use a tiny bit for the next few days, since the Carnival only came once a year. Cleaning myself up and washing off took a few minutes, and the soap had definitely left a stronger scent then I was expecting once I had washed off. Sniffing myself and hoping it was just my nose being unused to the scent, I climbed out of the tub and dried off, quickly dressing myself in my clean clothes and grabbing a cloth to wipe off the steam from the mirror.

Staring at myself in the mirror, I gave a small hmph before reaching into the drawer and retrieving my brush. It only took a few minutes of brushing and using the towel to squeeze out excess water from the ends of my hair before I was ready to go for the day. Replacing the brush where I took it and dropping the used towels and cloth into the hamper, I shut the lid with one hand. As I reached over to turn the valve responsible for deciding if the tub was to drain or not, I grabbed hold of the hamper and picked it up so it rested on my hip.

As I was pulling the bathroom door open, I blinked when I saw Romani perched on the bed, attempting to hastily shove her feet into her boots. "Good morning sis!" She called when she saw me, lacing them up as fast as she could without messing them up and having to start over.

"I thought you were planning on taking a bath this morning, Romani?" My brows furrowed, having remembered a conversation the two of us had the previous night during dinner.

"I don't have time right now! I gotta get more practice in with my bow to get ready for Them!" Romani hopped up off the bed, smiling up at me. Even though she had a serious case of bed hair and I could see a smudge of dirt on her chin, I couldn't help but give her a smile in return.

"How about you get your 'practice' in while I prepare breakfast, and then you take bath after, hmm? We've got a lot of stuff to do today, Romani." I patted her on the head, moving past her towards the stairs leading down to the first floor of our house. She whined behind me, and grumbled a few things under her breath before giving an 'okay' in return and bouncing down the stairs after me.

As Romani slammed the front door and all but flew outside, I let out a laugh at her exuberance. Following her, I shut the door quietly behind me, moving towards our washing equipment. As I set down the hamper next to the small basin and washing equipment we wash our clothes with, I looked up towards the small overhang. I had almost forgotten our most recent and probably temporary addition to the ranch.

A chestnut foal stood under the overhang connected to the house, simply staring at me. At least, we think it's a chestnut. Romani and I had never come across a horse with colorings quite like the foal sitting in front of us. We had semi-argued for a full day and well into the night the previous day, when she randomly wandered into our ranch from the fields.

We finally went with chestnut because we were flustered. The horses we've seen at the town as well as the ones we have raised in the past were a simple chocolate brown with similar chocolate colored manes and tails, with various black markings.

Horses from the distant parts of Termina always varied in colors and coat types, but we usually never got the chance to find out who their owners were or what type of coat the horse had.

I smiled at the foal, which gave a small whinny before settling back down onto the ground of the enclosure, and headed back inside to begin breakfast.

Gathering the things necessary to start making a simple breakfast of scrambled eggs, fried potatoes and sausage I set to work chopping, cracking, stirring and cooking.

Romani came in a minute before the food was done, giving me a smile before grabbing a carrot off the vegetable pile on the countertop and running back outside. I heard the foal nicker as it accepted the offered carrot, Romani's giggling following the noise.

As I set the table with a plate for each of us and began serving, she skipped back in and sat down at the table, grabbing a piece of potato off the plate and shoving it into her mouth before I was even done serving.

Noticing my amused look, she stuck her tongue out. "It's good food! I can't help myself!"

Shaking my head I set the serving dish down, taking my own seat and grabbing my fork. "How did your practice go?"

As she was using her fork as a makeshift spear in an attempt to get two potato bits and a bit of egg in one go, she huffed. "If I hadn't been distracted by Charlie I would have made a perfect score!" Charlie was our seven year old dog, given to us when Mamamu Yan first moved onto the ranch, back when our father was still alive. He was a bouncy, energetic dog that absolutely adored tackling me and Romani when it first laid eyes on us for the day.

"Mm, would you now?" I was making quick work of my scrambled eggs, preparing to finish them first and then move onto the potatoes, while Romani had somehow managed to mash her food together to make some kind of mixed, somewhat squished mess she kept forking into her mouth.

"Yeah! I had almost a full ten under a minute! And then Charlie came flying out of nowhere and I ended up shooting the tree next to the balloon instead." She huffed, but I could tell she didn't really mind the dog interrupting her.

"I'm going to head on over to the Cucco Shack while you're taking your bath. We need to start getting the eggs ready for delivery tonight, alright? Once we're done with that, it'll be time to let the cows out and get the barn ready so we can start milking them tomorrow." I took a moment to breathe, finishing my meal and standing up.

Romani took a minute to process what I had said before she nodded. "After we're all done for the day before you have to deliver, can I get some more practicing in? We gotta be ready for Them!"

"If we've got enough time between finishing and the delivery, yes, you can go play." As I stood, I noticed Romani's lips twitch downward into a brief frown before she brightened up again and hopped off her seat. "I'll see you soon, sis!" She called over her shoulder, dashing up the stairs.

I gathered the dishes, setting them into the sink to be washed later. Deciding it wouldn't hurt to give the foal another carrot, I took one from the counter as I headed outside.

Charlie came bounding around the corner of the barn as soon as I shut the door behind me, giving several barks as he charged towards me. Laughing I let him hop on me, nearly falling backwards as he kept bouncing around my legs. I patted him on the head and scratched behind his ears, smiling as his little tail wagged so fast I thought it was going to come off.

"Are you being a good boy today?" I asked, watching as the dog let out a yip in response. After a few more minutes of petting him he let out another bark and ran off towards the other end of the ranch. I watched him for a few minutes before turning to face the enclosure.

The foal got onto its legs, giving me a calm stare as I approached. "Hello. How are you today?" Father had always said to be calm around foals for the first few days of meeting them, as each foal had its distinct personality and some got much more easily scared than others did.

I smiled at it, holding the carrot out to it. It nickered at me before taking the carrot from my hand and crunching away at it. Giggling at how adorable it looked, I almost didn't hear the faint 'boom' coming from the entrance into the ranch.

Slowly turning around, I squinted at the entrance, but couldn't see anything. Maybe the Gorman Brothers were doing something with fireworks? I shrugged, not exactly sure. They seemed to do increasingly more unusual things each year around the time the Carnival was. I smiled at the foal once more before beginning the trip across the ranch to the Cucco Shack.

As I reached the door, I slowly opened it just in case any of Grog's little chicks were hovering near the entrance. In the past both I and Romani have accidentally let a few cuccos out by carelessly shoving the door open, much to Grog's disappointment.

Poking my head in to make sure they weren't hiding behind the door, I opened it a bit wider and stepped in. I smiled across to Grog, who waved as he noticed me enter. Shutting the door I began to walk over, only to pause when several chicks came running towards me, peering up at me and pecking at my shoes. I giggled when one chick managed to get a hold of a lace and began tugging.

Leaning over I picked the chick up, it giving a soft 'cheep' and tilting its head inquisitively at me. "Aw, you're so cute." I petted it on the head before setting it back down, carefully stepping over the chicks as I finally managed to make it to Grog.

"Good morning Grog! How are your Cuccos doing today? I hope Mimsy hasn't been giving you much trouble." Mimsy was the Cucco my father raised from an egg all by himself. She was an old, grouchy Cucco now and while it was 'okay' with me and somewhat okay with Romani, she went between loving Grog and trying to give Grog the hardest time ever whenever he had to go in to collect her eggs. Cuccos were overly protective of their eggs, more than any other bird I knew of, but Mimsy was obsessively protective at random. Poor Grog.

Grog rubbed at his head, shrugging a little. I noticed he had a finger wrapped up. Gesturing towards it, he responded. "She got me earlier when I tried to take an egg out from her coop. Seems she's going to be in her 'Touch them and die' mood all day today." He let out a laugh and I smiled. "Oh well. There's always tomorrow to collect for the next delivery if we can't get hers today." Turning my head I glanced towards the other coops, where several Cuccos were milling about.

Noticing he had set up the collection crates, which were crates specially made to carry several cucco eggs at once without damaging any, next to the coop area I asked, "Would you want to start gathering with me? Romani should be along in a few."

"Sure. How's she doing today? Still adamant she has to fine tune those archery skills of hers?" Grog stood up from the box he sat on, reaching down quickly to grab a bag of Cucco feed.

"Yep, from what I hear Charlie interrupted her practice today. Said she almost got a perfect score and then Charlie tackled her." I laughed, following him as he made his way towards the Cuccos.

Each year one of us would get to tossing Cucco feed around so the cuccos would be distracted, and the other would start gathering the eggs. It made collecting them much easier, because when the Cuccos were getting tasty food they weren't too keen on the person collecting their eggs. Without the tasty food though, and you'd get a mass of cuccos trying to peck you into next the next year.

"Shall I do the honors, or do you want to this year, Grog?" I gestured towards the coops, as he scratched his chin in thought. "Hm, how about you do it this year, Cremia? Last two years you've done egg gathering both times with Romani while I've just stood here and tossed some feed around. 'Sides, I haven't had a good conversation with Romani in a couple weeks. So busy with that bow of hers getting ready for the Carnival and all."

He handed me the bag of feed and I nodded in response. As I was opening my mouth to say something, the door slammed open causing several Cuccos to squawk in alarm and the chicks to run away cheeping as loud as they could. My eyebrows were nearly eaten by my hairline as Romani came running in, dragging a teenager wearing an odd green hat and tunic in behind her.

She paused just briefly to slam the door shut once he was in – almost catching his hat in the doorway – and then dragged him over to us shouting, "Sister! Look who I just met! Grasshopper! He owns Epona!" Epona was what my sister had named the foal once we had decided on what type of horse it was. Seeing as the boy didn't object to the name, I guessed it was Romani's mysterious luck that she got the name right.

The boy glanced around the Cucco Shack before he fixed his eyes on me, and as soon as he did his eyebrows rose just a slight bit, eyes widening. As quickly as the expression had donned his face, it appeared he forced himself to look calm again. His eyes however, were intensely focused on me.

Wondering if I had somehow met him before during a trip to the town and wronged him in some way and not noticed, I tilted my head as they made their way closer.

Grog blinked at both of them, one of his eyebrows raised. Romani waved at him before stopping just in front of the two of us with the boy. I fought the urge to blush as the boy continued to stare quietly at me, clutching the feed bag between my hands.

"Cremia, Cremia! This is Grasshopper! He doesn't speak! But his clothes are green so I named him Grasshopper! He's got amazing horseback archery skills!" She was bouncing in place practically as she told me about the boy, and I resisted the urge to hold a hand out to hold her down before she started hopping around like a bunny.

"I was in the bath earlier and you remember that 'BOOOOOOOM'" She waved her hands around as she spoke, "Right? I heard it while I was in the bath and I know you must've heard it because you were outside! It turns out there was a giant bolder blocking off the road into our Ranch from the fields! Grasshopper here got rid of it!" She gestured towards the boy, who still had yet to look anywhere but at me.

"And then he noticed Epona and ran up to her and it was this GREAT REUNION MOMENT you should've been there to see! So I asked him if he was the owner of her and he nodded and I was like WELL, obviously since you have a great horse you gotta show me you have great riding skills!" She seemed to 'squee' as she paused to breathe.

"And then I set up the balloons like I did this morning for practice and he got on Epona and just shot them all like he could do it while blind! Thirty seconds! That's amazingly better than any time I've ever had!" Romani finally stopped to breathe some more, apparently done for the moment.

"Well, it's good you met another person who has excellent archery skills like you do, sister." I smiled at her, still not quite sure what to do with the boy staring at me and how to respond to her excited barrage of words. "And it's a pleasure to meet you, Grasshopper. My name is Cremia, I own the Ranch and this man here is our friend Grog, he takes care of all the Cuccos." I gestured to both myself and Grog. I felt a little awkward calling him by the nickname, but he nodded in response, finally taking his gaze off me to peer at Grog, who was playing with one of the cucco chicks.

"We were just about to begin egg gathering when you two showed up. I'm sure you're both eager to go back out and practice your archery skills and play with Epona more, but you do have chores you need to do, Romani." I continued. She groaned loudly as I spoke. "But Sis-"

Grasshopper put his hand on Romani's shoulder, causing her to pause and look at him. He jerked his head towards the cucco coops. "What? You want to help?" Romani blinked at him. He nodded and she grinned. "Look sis, he can help us with the chores and we'll be done quicker. PLEEEEEEEEASE?"

Turning my gaze back to him, I held the feed bag in one hand and brought the other hand up to my chin. "If you wouldn't be bothered by it, I would appreciate the help. We've got a lot of stuff to do in the next few days to get ready for the Carnival." He nodded to me. I smiled at him, noticing that the tip of his nose and ears turned just the tiniest bit pink. "I'll be tossing feed around for the Cuccos, and while I've got them distracted you, Romani, and Grog here," I gestured towards Grog as he waved the chick off to go play with its siblings. "Will be gathering the eggs and placing them in their spots in the collecting crates."

Grasshopper nodded again, giving me another intense stare as I fiddled with trying to open the feed bag. Grog stood up, brushing his pants off as he moved towards the Cucco coops, Romani following shortly after. As I finally got the bag opened and tossed the first handful of feed out, there was a loud ruckus from the Cuccos as they all clamored towards the area around me in an attempt to be the first beak to the food.

I laughed at how goofy they looked, and continued tossing feed out. Romani and Grog were having a conversation together, which caused one or both of them to laugh and pause in gathering for a couple minutes at a time.

Grasshopper on the other hand, worked quietly and quickly as if he was a professional at the task, only sending glances in my direction when he was going between the coop and the crates and back again.

One rather large Cucco had taken up a post at my feet, and I suspected it was much higher up on the pecking order than the other Cuccos were as none of the other birds got in range of it as it sat there staring at me and the feed bag. Raising my eyebrows at it, I finally dropped a handful or two at my feet of feed for it, and it dug in with no competition.

Egg gathering took about an hour and a half, and by then I was on my third bag. The large Cucco had waddled off to inspect the chicks across the shack, whereas the other Cuccos were still pecking around for whatever bits they could get.

"And there's the last egg," Grog announced as slid a crate lid onto a crate. "Little more than last year, pretty good amount I think. Should make the customers satisfied this year, Cremia." He smiled at me, Romani chattering away to Grasshopper as she brushed her hands off on her dress. "It went much faster with the extra help this year, that's for sure." I replied, tying the feed bag shut and moving to place it with the others next to Grog's box.

"Give us a bit to go check on the cows and fix up the barn some and I'll bring Lucas and the wagon around to load up the eggs for tonight, alright?" I smiled back at him. "I'm all good with waiting, Cremia. Take as long as you need to. Besides, I'm sure once the Cuccos realize their little groups of eggs are missing they'll be raising up a storm so I'll have some time to get them all calmed back down." Grog laughed before plopping down on the box. Several Cucco chicks were immediately at his feet, cheeping away at him.

Romani bounced over to me as soon as I turned towards the exit, the poor boy getting yanked along after her once more. "C'mon Grasshopper! Taking care of the cows is easy! Once we get them out into the pasture and fix up the barn we can do more archery practice!" I laughed at his face as she swerved around one of the many small fences sitting in the Cucco Shack, nearly causing him to trip and face plant. He just barely managed to get a foot out in front of him to steady himself, and looked at me when he heard my laugh. Romani broke him out of whatever intense staring session he was about to start with me, and slammed the Cucco Shack door open exclaiming they had to get the chores done immediately so they could have more time to get in some practice.

I stayed behind, somewhat fixed to the spot for a moment.

Why did he keep looking at me like that?


	2. Day 1, Part 2

**A/N: After spending something like five hours straight rewriting my HP fanfic to something I thought was better than it was previously, I finally finished it and reposted it up and updated! I'm so happy. My last update for that story was ages ago! And here's my next update for Chateau Romani! :3 And yay! I got a review!**

**I love it when people review and say they like my story or have an idea on how things should go or want to speak their opinion on something that's going on. Sometimes I feel like when I write about a character, I just end up rambling and have to go back over the chapter several times deleting and rewriting bits.**

**_LinkGotAShotgun_****: Hi! :D I'm so glad you reviewed. Now, I remember Grog – During Ocarina of Time - being extremely emo and his outlook on EVERYBODY (including his parents!) was that they were just disgusting. He pretty much had the same idea about Link too, until the man returned him his beloved blue cucco! (Haha! Reference to the blue cucco stuffie!) That surprised him enough to consider Link as a nice guy, rather than just another disgusting person.**

**From what I remember about Majora's Mask, Grog – while sporting his fabulous Mohawk – doesn't have any issues with anybody, and he's got no relatives in the game that are actually SEEN. Just an unnamed relative whose mentioned briefly.**

**He loves his cucco chicks, and the main reason he's so gloomy during the game until you use the Mask is he was upset the moon was going to fall in three days. This means he wouldn't be able to watch those cute little chicks grow up. I'm hoping to either go back and fix it or add in something explaining, because in my mind neither of them have really had the situation 'kick in' just yet.**

**I'm sure if I realized we were all going to get crushed off the face of the planet in a few days, I'd totally focus on something else so I wouldn't have to deal with the incoming doom and the stress it'd bring.**

**They're so close to the Carnival, which is a yearly happy time with weddings and whatnot, and blammo moon's gonna squash them all. You know what I mean?**

**Grog's probably still hurting, but trying to make the best of it because of the rest of the people on the Ranch. Plus I like to write that his precious little cucco chicks just love him and like playing with him!**

**As for Link talking when he's alone with someone, that could work! That's a great idea. I would just have to figure out how to exactly make it work when I figure out his personality more.**

**The reason I put it as M is I'm not really sure just yet if I'm going to write any lemons or not. I haven't written an actual lemon in years! I'm tempted to, however. I also wanted the flexibility to work with as I've got some ideas I want to try testing out with Link's personality and whatnot. I don't plan on doing anything extremely outrageous it'd need to be sent to the AFF site immediately, however, haha.**

**The way I've been looking at it, is because from what I know from the wikis and stuff, Link – during OOT – got the chance to go back in time to his original age & time and warn Zelda about what was going to happen, thus stopping Ganondorf from being able to destroy the castle and take over the Kingdom for seven years. He's also still got full memories of his entire adventure, so he's mentally older than he is physically. That and he's still got his mitts on the Ocarina of Time, which as we know lets him control time, speeding it up, slowing it down, and backing it up or jumping forward.**

**I'm not even sure how many time loops I want Link to have gone through by the time my fanfic starts, but it's something I want to use to help build his personality, and why he's so glued to looking at Cremia all the time. She may not remember each loop, but he sure does! That's a whole bunch of different possibilities regarding their conversations and actions over each 3 day loop.**

**Originally I wanted Link to be laid back, happy, and while he's courageous as heck he's also incredibly polite. But then there are those tiny kink muses, who just want me to make him courageous, mysterious, and to add a odd possessive tinge to how he looks at the person he's smitten with. I'm not quite sure what I'll do with him, haha!**

**Thank you again for reviewing, sorry if I rambled!  
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Taking a deep breath, I slowly exhaled before giving Grog another wave goodbye and hastily exiting the Cucco Shack, closing the door that Romani had carelessly tossed wide open in her haste before any Cuccos could get out.

Making my across the fields towards the barn, I could see her chatting excitedly with the boy as she unlocked the doors and swung them wide open. The cows were huddled in a group together, and once they noticed Romani standing in the entryway, began to moo and slowly walk towards the entrance with the intent on getting to relax in the sun and graze.

It took me a few minutes because I wasn't in an extreme hurry like my sister to get there, but when I arrived I smiled when I heard Romani counting each cow as they exited the barn.

We originally had twenty cows – including three precious specially bred cows that were Romani's namesake – but the vandal last month had lowered us down to nineteen. We had gotten extremely lucky that the cow they had made off with was just one of our regular cows. Because of that incident, Romani made sure to count each particular cow every morning and night just to make sure the vandal hadn't managed to get their mitts on another one.

"Seventeen… Eighteen… Nineteen!" She finished up, grinning wide as she turned to face me. "So we just have to clean out the barn and refill it with fresh hay and oats, right?"

I nodded, "Yes, but we also need to make sure we're using the new buckets this year and we aren't accidentally using a rusty one or one that hasn't been cleaned properly. That and we still need to count our bottle supply. I know we should have enough of the little bottles for the regular milk and special orders of the Chateau Romani, but the Milk Bar want's three of the big ones for the festival. I can't remember if it was one of the big bottles that was smashed by that vandal, or if it was a couple of the little ones…" I sighed before stepping into the barn, only to pause and cover my mouth before I giggled.

Standing inside with one of our Romani cows, Grasshopper was stay just out of the cows reach, as the cow had apparently thought that the green hat the boy wore was edible, and it wanted to have a taste. After a few exaggerated shoo-motions by flailing his arms around, followed by several loud displeased moos, the cow finally left the poor boy alone to go off and graze with the rest of the herd. I patted it on the back as it walked past me before nodding in greeting once more when Grasshopper noticed me. He gave a small wave with his hand in return.

Romani hollered something at one of the cows grazing before skipping inside to join us both, glancing around the barn. Noticing the state it was in (manure, old hay, non edible hay, etc) she made a face before sticking her tongue out. "Aw man, this is going to take forever!" She threw her hands in front of her in exasperation before her shoulders slump.

"How about you work on cleaning up the stalls while I'll get the manure moved out back to the compost pile, and your friend can start bringing down new hay bales from the loft and getting the bags of oats ready. Split up the work, and help each other with the last few bits if we finish our part early. Does that sound good?" I suggested, placing both hands on either of my younger siblings' shoulders and slowly pushing her towards the western part of the barn where the stalls were.

"That'll work great!" Romani giggled before turning towards Grasshopper. "I bet I'll finish faster than you and my sister combined!" She blew a raspberry at him before grabbing a broom and walking towards the stalls.

I turned to see if Grasshopper was okay with the idea, and our eyes met and I had the resist the urge to shiver. There was just something about his gaze, as if he'd seen more things than one his age could possibly see, and the way it was fixed on me was more intense than any of the times I had seen him look towards my sister or Grog. We stood there staring in silence for a moment before he nodded and turned towards the ladder leading up into the loft.

After watching him begin climbing, I turned and grabbed hold of the shovel leaning against the wall next to the entrance into the barn. Time to scoop the poop, as father used to say. I stepped carefully over the piles towards the back of the barn, unlatching and sliding the wooden door open. About ten feet behind our barn was our compost pile. It wasn't very nice to smell - especially in the summer – but it did help break down old vegetables and make our planting soil nicer.

Thinking briefly of the best and most efficient way to get the manure out of the barn and into the compost pile without causing too much of a strain on myself, I set to work. While we began working in complete silence, I couldn't help but start humming to myself the tune our mother used to sing to us as a lullaby. It helped me concentrate on my task, and I could tell it was helping Romani focus on hers from the smile that appeared on her face.

By the time I was halfway done, Romani was still dealing with a rather dirty part of one of the stalls, and amazingly Grasshopper – again as if he'd done this job before – had been carefully moving bales of fresh hay and bags off the side of the loft onto a pile below, and occasionally climbed down to carefully sort what he had tossed down into neat stacked piles. I wondered where he came from. Maybe he had worked for a bit at the Gorman Brothers' farm? I know they had recently converted part of the area around their home into a racetrack, but for what reason I had no idea.

The Gorman Brothers used to be a set of three, somewhat happy if not slightly egotistical brothers. A while back the oldest brother had decided to give up working on the farm in pursuit of becoming a troupe leader. That event caused the two younger brothers to turn from happy men into bitter, depressed and rather malicious men. Once father passed away, I warned Romani repeatedly not to go near their farm – if for any reason she needed to leave our Ranch and visit the town without me or Mamamu or Grog to stay directly on the Milk Road all the way through.

I know they occasionally hired help, so just maybe that's how Grasshopper was so adept at his task.

Scooping the last of the poop outside onto the pile, I headed in and set the shovel back down where I got it from, grabbing up a flat broom and began to sweep bits of hay and whatnot that was no longer good – mostly because it had either been pooped on or trampled into the dirt – out the back door as well. Once I was done with that, I set the broom next to the shovel and brushed my hands off.

Looking around the barn, Romani still had a small quarter left to go in the stalls, and Grasshopper had a few more things to stack up properly. Glancing outside towards the cows, I knew it had to be getting near early afternoon and turned back towards the two hard working teenagers. "I'm going to head inside and make some lemonade. I'll bring it out in a few if you aren't done, otherwise I'll be in the kitchen. Alright?"

Grasshopper nodded and Romani cheered, almost clonking herself in the head with the broom handle she was holding. I laughed before exiting the barn and heading towards the house.

As I was walking past the washing basin, Charlie came flying out of Goddesses know where and bounding towards me. "ARRRRRRRRRRUFFF!" He greeted, stopping just at my feet before giving me a rather happy and drool ridden doggy grin. I reached down and patted him. "I was wondering when you'd show up again, hmm? Did you have fun out in the fields earlier?" I began walking again, Charlie following behind with a yip.

Once both the dog and I were inside, I opened up the cupboard directly above the sink to take out a tiny dog treat from the box Mamamu Yan had given me earlier in the week. Charlie's butt immediately met the floor as he sat at attention, attempting to wait patiently for the treat. I laughed at his reaction before handing him the treat, patting him on the head as he took his new prize towards his doggy bed near the fire.

Turning back to the cupboard, I gathered the supplies I would need to make the Lemonade. I didn't make it much, because nobody on the ranch actually grew lemons. When I made my occasional visits into town to buy supplies that weren't readily available at the ranch, I usually stopped by the Stock Pot Inn.

My best friend Anju and her family lived there, and she was the current innkeeper. Anju and I go as far back as I can remember – her family took her one day to visit my family on the Ranch before Romani was born. We had hit it off as friends almost instantly and were almost inseparable up to the day she had to take over the Inn as it was passed down through her families' generations, and I had to take over the Ranch when my father unexpectedly passed away.

When I was able to visit her in Clock Town, it was there I was able to meet Kafei. He was an extremely likable boy, with the most beautiful blue hair I had ever seen. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried, growing up he only had eyes for my friend Anju. I remember one day she came to me overjoyed, and after a moment of questioning, she told me he had made her promise that they would get married as adults on the day of the Carnival.

I remember being incredibly sad that day, but I had covered it up the best I could because Anju was still my best friend. While the pain of never being able to catch Kafei's eye has never truly gone away over the years, I've still kept in touch as best as I could with both of them on the Ranch. They grew several fruits and vegetables on their own, as Anju's mother was quite a cook and used many combinations of them in her dishes. Lemons being one of their most used and grown, and because I was Anju's closest friend, I was allowed to take a couple lemons each time for free.

After getting a knife out of its holding block, I quickly cut a few lemons in half before carefully rinsing it off and putting it back in the block. I could hear Romani chattering excitedly about something to Grasshopper, and hummed as I began the process of squeezing the lemon juice into a pitcher. Once the lemons had every last drop of juice squeezed out of them, I set them aside to take out later.

Turning on the sink briefly, I let the pitcher fill up with a bit of water. I took a wooden spoon and stirred the juice and water together as it filled, and once I figured there was enough water in the pitcher I shut the sink off and reached back into the cupboard for a small bag of sugar. Carefully taking a small cup of sugar out of the bag without spilling any like I usually do, I dropped the sugar into the pitcher and put the measuring cup back into the bag, and the bag back into the cupboard.

Stirring a couple more times with the spoon, I reached for three glasses just as Romani bounded into the house, plopping into her seat at the table hastily while Grasshopper wandered in slowly behind her, at a much more relaxed pace.

"It's all done! We counted the bottles too! We need a dozen tiny bottles!" Romani frowned. "But the good thing is the big bottles we deliver to the Milk Bar are totally fine, we don't need any more of those. I remember those were expensive last time we went!" She threw her hands out in front of her before resting them on the table.

Grasshopper took a seat to Romani's left as I carried the glasses and the pitcher over, setting a glass in front of each of them and one in front of my seat before carefully pouring lemonade into each. Setting the pitcher aside, I sat down and smiled at them.

"I'll buy some when I head to the town tonight to deliver the eggs, it'll be no problem. We should be perfectly set to begin milking the cows tomorrow." I picked up my glass of lemonade, taking a sip from it. It was almost perfectly between sweet and bitter.

Grasshopper immediately threw back half the glass in one swallow, setting it back down onto the table with a clink. Romani on the other hand took careful sips of the drink, savoring it because it had been a while since the last time either of us had tasted lemonade.

"Once we're done with this break, I'm going to get Lucas set up to the wagon and head on over to the Cucco Shack to start loading the crates onto it, okay? Don't accidentally shoot each other playing your archery game." I took another sip of the lemonade.

"YAY! I'm going to beat your score this morning, Grasshopper! JUST YOU WAIT!" Romani shook a finger at Grasshopper, who flicked his gaze between her and I before finishing off his glass. As he quietly pushed it towards the pitcher, I could tell he was asking for a refill. Once I had refilled it, he nodded his thanks before sticking his tongue out at Romani.

I let out a quiet laugh at the two of them before finishing off my glass, standing up and setting it carefully into the sink. "Feel free to drink as much as the lemonade as you two want, just don't get too crazy out there and end up choking on it."

"Thanks sis!" Romani bounced in her seat, grinning from ear to ear at me. I just patted her on the head as I moved out of the house. Stretching slightly once I was outside, I glanced around the pasture for Lucas. Spotting him, I gave a sharp whistle and smiled as he immediately began trotting towards me.

Leading him towards the side of the barn where we kept the delivery wagon, I patted him on the neck and got him in position to hitch the wagon up. Once that was done I gave him another pat before swinging myself up into the front of the wagon, sitting down behind the wheel. Giving another whistle, Lucas began pulling the wagon dutifully, and I steered him towards the Cucco Shack.

Romani bounced out of the house with Grasshopper in tow just as we passed by, and I gave them both a wave. Romani waved back so hard I thought her arm was going to fall off, while Grasshopper gave me another one of those unusual stares before blinking when Romani shoved a balloon into his hands.

Adding a mental note to buy a few more balloons just in case my younger sister went a little too crazy popping the ones we had in store from the last time we went shopping, I called Lucas to a halt just outside the entrance into the Cucco Shack. I smiled when I noticed Grog had carefully stacked the collection crates outside the entrance into the Shack. Sliding off the seat and the wagon, I headed over and picked up a crate.

It was a little heavier then I remember, but I managed to get it set into the back of the wagon fine. There were about five more crates to move, and I tried to stack them as neatly as I could in the back of the wagon. I made sure to stack them in two rows of three next to each other; having learned from experience that sometimes bumps in the road could spell disaster for things stacked up on top of other things.

Brushing my hands onto my skirt when I was finally done loading the wagon, I made my way back to the front, hopping into the seat once more. Deciding to get a head start on the delivery – since I needed to make both the delivery and stop to get the bottles as well as the balloons – I whistled for Lucas to start moving, and as we made our way back down towards the house and the start of the Milk Road, I gave both Romani and Grasshopper a wave.

I wasn't sure if either of them noticed, however, as they both seemed pretty determined to beat the other at shooting balloons down left and right. I laughed at the expression on Romani's face as the boy ended up miraculously popping two in a row.

Leaning back into the seat to get comfortable, I looked around my surroundings as we started to leave the Ranch. A stray cucco was sitting under a tree at the Milk Road, and I briefly wondered if that was one of the cuccos we had accidentally let out in the past or if it belonged to the Gorman Brothers and had simply wandered.

It gave me a beady eyed stare as we passed, fluffing up and clucking to itself before closing its eyes to apparently take a nap. I laughed at how relaxed it was, and blinked when the road leading into the Gorman Brothers' farm came into view. It looked slightly ominous, which was odd since it never stood out to me quite so much in the past as it did now.

Whistling for Lucas to hurry up, we quickly trotted past the entrance and out of the Milk Road, starting across the Termina Fields.

I estimated by my pace and where the sun was in the sky when I had finally managed to get the last crate on the wagon that with luck and quick shopping I'd manage to get back to the Ranch just before sunset. I wasn't sure if I wanted to attempt to pass by the Gorman Brothers' road at night by what I had just felt passing it a moment ago.

Humming to myself, I felt myself thinking about that mysterious Grasshopper some more. I wondered if we'd ever find out his real name, or if we'd be calling him Grasshopper for the rest of the time he was visiting us. To be honest, while there was something definitely strange about the way he looked at me and did chores and whatnot with such effortless skill, I was happy he had shown up because of how happy my sister had found a friend to practice archery with and drag around the ranch.

I glanced up very briefly at the moon that was now looming over the town, and paused in my humming. It was definitely larger than I remember it having been the day I first noticed it above the town.

Two days ago, I had woken up and began to get ready for a regular day of working around the ranch. I was halfway through my morning bath when Romani began yelling hysterically, and I nearly knocked myself out getting out of the tub and getting to the door without slipping all over the place. I remember grabbing a towel to wrap around myself and yanking the door open only to be met by Romani nearly barreling me over in a hug, obviously terrified by something.

Wrapping an arm around her, I had scooted both of us closer to the window, to see if some kind of wild animal had gotten onto our ranch or if the vandal was back. I didn't see anything at all until I looked up, and then I think my heart stopped for a moment.

The moon, which I had always thought of just a bright faceless circle in the sky, had somehow moved startling close. It was HUGE, hanging there in the sky… Not only that, but it wasn't faceless at all. Upon the front of the moon there was a large, gaping mouth twisted into a grimace, teeth bared. There were also two wide fiery orange colored eyes opened wide as well as a nose. It was horrific to look at, and I immediately made to close the curtains on the window and give my sister a hug.

Now, days later, we were still following my advice of "Try not look or think about it." I was failing at that advice, but Romani had almost obsessively refused to look anywhere near the direction of Clock Town.

Shaking my head, I looked back down towards the Town. Slowing Lucas a little as we neared the gates, and finally stopping him at the entrance, I smiled as the guard – who I remember from my last visit, was called Jack - walked over.

"Good afternoon, Miss Cremia! Makin' another delivery I see?" He smiled up at me. "Yep, a whole batch of fine cucco eggs for the Stockpot Inn. They've got a whole bunch of cooking to do in the next few days." I replied, shifting in the seat a little. "I see you don't look as bored as the last time I made a delivery, Jack. The Bombers been extra busy lately?"

He laughed at that, shaking his head. "Just as busy as they always are, Miss. Seems like their rather energetic this time of the year. Their leader's been pestering me and a few of the other guards in an attempt to let them go out and play in the fields. Hope someday they'll learn there are more things out there than just the idea of a grand adventure… I've been seeing a rather nasty looking vulture circling around the entrance to the Milk Road and I'm not sure they'd fare off to well if it thought it wanted a taste of them."

Jack coughed into his hand, fixing his helmet after a moment. "I'd best let you be on your way Miss, it was a pleasure seeing you again." He gave me a smile, and I nodded my goodbye to him and attempted to hold down the blush that was threatening to cross my cheeks. Whistling Lucas onwards once the guard stepped fully out of the way, we made our way into the town and I had to be extra careful maneuvering the wagon through the streets.

The Bombers were a gang of younger kids who did everything from helping the older people carry things to making sure the homeless had food to eat and had a real big effort on trying to do good deeds all day every day of the year. I saw what the guard meant by energetic, as several times I had to jerk Lucas to a halt with a whistle because a kid would go running past on his way to deliver something or pick up something.

When I finally neared the Stockpot Inn, I made my way around the side to the small back door used for deliveries. I waved to the Postman as I slid off the wagon, turning and knocking on the door twice.

It took a few minutes before it swung open, and Anju peeked out. She looked a little worse for wear, but she smiled wide when she saw me. "Cremia! How pleasant. I was hoping you'd arrive today. Let me help you bring those inside. My Momma's been waiting to make some good food lately with your great tasting eggs." She set the door open as far as it could go, stepping out to give me a brief hug, which I returned.

"It's good to see you again Anju! They're guaranteed plenty fresh, and I hope your mother doesn't come across any bad eggs." I moved with her to the back of the wagon, each of us grabbing a crate. She carried hers in first, and I followed. "I doubt she'll find any this year, we've yet to get a bad egg out of any of the deliveries you've made to us." She set the first crate down carefully in the kitchen, and after moving out of the way helped me stack mine.

I wondered where Kafei was – usually when I made my deliveries he'd be hovering around his fiancé trying to get her to let him carry things inside instead of her carrying them – but I didn't ask because I could tell Anju had been losing some sleep lately.

It took us about fifteen more minutes to get the rest of the crates in and stacked, and she smiled at me once more before telling me to hold on a moment and disappearing into another room. Returning in less than a minute, she handed two orange rupees over. "You'll stop by again more before the festival, right?"

"Of course, Anju. I plan on making a milk delivery tomorrow for the Milk Bar. Shall I stop by then?" I pocketed the rupees carefully into a pouch sewn into the side of my dress and waited for her response. "I would love if you would. I'll save you some of mother's dinner."

"That'd be great. I haven't had any of her cooking in months." We spent a few more minutes conversing and saying our goodbyes, and finally I was on my way to do some shopping while Anju said she'd keep an eye on Lucas and the wagon.

My first stop was to the glassmaker, where I purchased the needed amount of bottles, and then paid a little extra so the glassmaker's apprentice would go and load up the wagon while I was finishing the rest of my shopping.

About a half hour later found me finally leaving Clock Town, steering Lucas towards the Milk Road happily. As I passed the Gorman farm, that ominous feeling set in once more, and I sped up as much as I could without causing harm to the bottles in the back of the wagon.

When the Ranch gate finally came into view, I smiled wide. I could see both Grasshopper and Romani sitting in front of the house waiting, Romani perched on the wooden box, while Charlie was snoozing next to Grasshoppers foot on the ground.

Romani hopped off the box and began running towards me at full tilt as she saw me come into view, waving one arm. I waved in return with a laugh, and Lucas let out a snort.

Slowing Lucas to a walk I let Romani hop aboard, and was immediately engulfed in a hug. "You took a longer time than usual to make that delivery, sis! Grasshopper and I ran out of balloons like an hour ago!" She huffed.

I had expected this, and merely pointed a finger over my shoulder, giggling at Romani's shocked expression and squeal of excitement as she hopped into the back of the wagon and found the package of balloons. "YEEEEEEEEEEES!"

Grasshopper stared at the two of us as we got closer to the house, me turning the wheel slowly so Lucas would head towards the barn. "Hello." I called as we passed. He waved at me before Romani hopped off the back of the wagon, running towards him with the packing held above her as if it was a trophy.

"WE'RE SAAAAAAAVEEEEEEEEED!" Grasshopper rose both eyebrows at her while Charlie snorted awake and then got up and started hopping around Romani, not quite sure why she was yelling but wanting to get in on the fun right away.

Stopping next to the barn, I hopped off the wagon myself, patting Lucas on the back before unhitching him and letting him walk over towards the water bin. I noticed the two had put the cows away for the night, but had left the door unlocked. Opening it a small bit, I began to unload the bottles from the back before heading inside with them. I stacked them up neatly near our original supply of bottles, and patted a cow on my final way out. After closing and locking the door, I noticed Romani had abandoned the package of balloons with Grasshopper in favor of digging around the back of the wagon through the rest of the stuff I had bought.

Deciding to let her bring the rest of the things in – as there was nothing heavy at all remaining on the wagon – I headed towards the house, preparing to start up the fire. The sun was slowly setting, and I paused just outside the door.

"Are you planning to spend the night?" I questioned Grasshopper, who blinked at me for a moment before glancing towards the barn. "I have an old set of quilts and pillows I can set up for you inside if you are. I couldn't turn a guest away to sleep in the barn or out here in the cold." I turned to face him. Romani waddled past me with a stack of purchases, apparently not believing in making more than one trip.

Grasshopper watched her go before nodding and giving me a small smile. I smiled in return before heading inside, stepping to the side of the door to let him in and then shutting the door after.

Romani was oo'ing and ahh'ing over everything mostly because of the fact everything was new, and there were a couple sets of clothing mixed in with the rest of the purchases. In an attempt to lighten the mood as we got closer to the Carnival – due to that disturbing moon hanging in the sky – I had finally branched out and bought her the clothing she had been eyeballing for the last few visits into town. Once she finally got to the clothing, she started cheering and ran over to Grasshopper to show him her new possessions.

Charlie sat on his doggy bed in front of the fireplace as I approached, and I patted him on the head before getting the flint and tinder from the counter and set to work getting the fire going. Once it was going strong I moved to check if Romani had brought in the packages of meat I had bought from the butcher in town. Seeing that she had tossed them onto the table, I smiled and grabbed them. I'd have to deal with preparing the unused meat for storing later on, but for now I could just work on dinner.

Digging through the cupboard under one side of the counter, I took out both a pot and a small frying pan. Setting the latter on the counter, I used one hand to turn the sink on and the other to hold the pot under the water. Filling it just a little bit, I shut the water off and moved to place the pot on top of our stove.

As I was gathering the peas, carrots, green beans, beans and a pair of tomatoes I planned to use, Grasshopper made his way over to me. He looked between me and the food and I blinked. "If you wouldn't mind helping, I could use some help skinning the carrots and crushing up the tomatoes to put in the pot." I smiled at him.

He nodded and moved past me to grab a knife out of the block, taking the carrots from the pile I had made and got to skinning them. I dumped the peas, green beans, and beans into the pot and went to grab a few logs to place inside the stove, and once I had them inside and lit, I shut the stove door. All I had to do now was get the meat ready and wait for the pot to heat up.

Unwrapping the meat – I had chosen to put use beef tonight – I took another knife from the block and began slowly cutting the meat up into manageable bits. Dropping the knife into the sink once I was done, I plopped the bits into the frying pan. By now the stove was heating up pretty well and I was having an easy time browning the meat.

The boy scooted around me to dump the skinned and chopped carrots in the pot, and was working on ripping the tomatoes up and dropping them in as well. "Thank you." I said as he finished. He smiled – this one was much wider than the first – and moved to sit down at the table, where Romani was fiddling with her bow string.

Once the meat had browned enough I carefully held the frying pan up and moved the meat into the pot, which had a nice boil going on. "In about an hour and a half or so it'll be done. Alright?" I peered over my shoulder at the two as I set the frying pan in the sink.

"I can't wait! Grasshopper, you're going to love my sisters cooking! She learned the best recipes ever from our mom!" Romani bounced in her seat as she bragged to Grasshopper, the bow string almost getting dropped off the side of the table as she moved.

He watched her bounce for a minute before nodding and glancing towards the pot. There was a moment of silence before his stomach grumbled, and I could see the tips of his ears turned pink. I held a hand over my mouth to be polite, but Romani cracked up.

"See, Cremia! He can't wait!" She pointed at him and he gave her a mock glare across the table.

Time passed quicker than I had expected it to, and in no time at all I was serving the now ready soup into bowls. Romani snagged her bowl immediately and was at the table digging in at an almost record speed, while Grasshopper took his time and nodded his head in thanks once his bowl was full. He got himself a spoon and sat down across from Romani, and I soon joined the two of them with my own bowl. Amazingly the two had managed to save some Lemonade from earlier, and while it was a bit warm it was a fitting drink to go with our soup.

I finished eating earlier then both of them, and as I put my used dishes into the sink I reminded myself I'd have to do some dishes after breakfast tomorrow. Covering a yawn with my hand, I headed towards the linen closet were we kept our spare quilts and sheets and the like, and pulled out a couple of plush quilts as well as a pillow. Moving back into the main room with the pile, I set it down near the fireplace.

"I'm feeling more tired than usual, Romani, so I'm going to head up to bed early. If you need anything Grasshopper, Romani will get it for you. If we're both asleep later on, feel free to wake one of us up, alright?" Grasshopper looked between the pile of quilts I had set down and me, and nodded again. Romani gave me a brief hug as she told me goodnight. I noticed the two had their bows sitting out on the floor in front of the fireplace, and both quivers had been fully refilled with arrows. I hoped they weren't planning on going out and practicing archery out in the dark.

"Good night, you two." I headed up the stairs to the bedroom, opening the door and shutting it softly behind me. Yawning wider now, I quickly changed into my nightgown, setting my work clothes aside. I'd have to do the laundry tomorrow as well, and apparently I accidentally left the hamper outside.

Oops.


	3. Day 2, Part 1

**A/N: Hello everybody! Another update here :D **

**LinkGotAShotgun – I pm'd as asked**

**Joseph Kuo – Haha, I just noticed some errors in the last chapter where a few words had been cut in half. I'll have to go back and fix them. Because it's such an unloved pairing was part of the reason I chose to write it! I liked reading about Cremia, but between AFF and here there just wasn't enough fanfics to get my reading full. So I decided to try my hand at writing one. Thank you for your review!**

**Blizzaga Saga – I'm glad you like Romani's personality! I like writing her a lot. She's still a young girl with an adventurous personality and there's just so much you can with her character. I will admit I have completely forgotten she speaks in third person almost constantly when she references herself in conversations, but I am hoping people won't mind! I'm also happy you like how the story is going. **

**I don't think I'd be able to write a constantly exciting adventurous story, especially when it's about Cremia and her sister. They're both siblings that take care of their family's ranch, and their days leading up to the moon incident were probably very plain and normal before that. I'm planning on writing them so while even though the moon is falling, and the Gorman Brothers are up to no good, they're still dutiful to their Ranch life instead of just dropping it away completely.**

**But that's not say I don't plan on adding any excitement! Link's still going from here to there for his mission to save Termina, and there are a couple time loops I want to go through before he cracks down and kicks Majora's butt. His actions and decisions do affect Cremia and Romani for the loop he's in, like if he's there or not the first night, if he helps with the milk delivery the second day, etc.**

**My inspiration to write lately has been hitting me rather hard during the early morning, and while I catch some of my mistakes, I don't catch everything. My current goal is to write the chapter, and check the grammar and spelling the best I can, and then post it up once I am sure there isn't massively wrong with it. I usually notice more errors that I didn't see before once it's posted on the site, and between what I notice reading it on the site and what reviewers point out they've noticed by reading, I go back and edit and fix up bits.**

**As for their physical descriptions, I was planning over the course of this chapter and the next one to try to add in a little detail. Though I will admit I'm not sure if I've managed to write the descriptions in this chapter well enough they blend with the rest of the story or if they're sticking out like sore thumbs in usual spots.**

**Thank you for reviewing, and sorry my response was ginormous!**

**I've also managed to rewrite this chapter three different times, and I'm still not sure if I like it. But maybe that's just because I'm being a bit of a perfectionist and it's late. I hope you guys like at least part of it!**

**Edit: Already managed to stumble across an entire sentence and a half that I apparently forgot to delete when I was rewriting a paragraph. EEP! It's gone now!  
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I felt rather refreshed when I woke up to the sound of the cucco crowing, and I rubbed at my eyes and simply laid there for a few moments as I woke up fully. I wondered if Romani and Grasshopper had slept as well as I did last night.

I felt slightly bad for not having a third bed or some kind of spare mattress that Grasshopper could have used, but we had gotten rid of our parents bed a while back due to the unpleasant memories with their deaths connected to it, and I had shoved my bed over to fill the empty corner of the room.

Perhaps if he became a constant presence at the Ranch I would go and buy one from the carpenters in town. He surely didn't seem as if he was only here to visit us once before disappearing forever.

Yawning and stretching my arms out, I rolled over to see if Romani was waking up as well. I paused in the middle of my stretching, with one arm hanging over the side of the bed when I saw that her bed was empty and that it hadn't been looked like it had been used at all in the past couple of hours.

Pushing myself into a sitting position and giving a further look around the bedroom, it became obvious that last night I was the only one to come into the room, as there weren't even her usual set of dirty day clothes waiting next to mine to be put in the hamper.

Running a hand through my hair, I thought it wouldn't hurt to check downstairs and make sure everything was alright. I briefly remembered seeing they both had their bows out last night, and that made me stand and head towards the door.

Maybe they had gone out during the night to practice and she didn't want to wake me up sneaking back into the room? It wouldn't hurt to sneak down the stairs and just check to make sure they were both still in the house… I feel like such a worrywart.

Quietly opening it and thanking the Goddesses the hinges didn't squeak, I carefully made my way down the stairs, avoiding the steps I knew creaked under pressure. When I was far enough down the steps to peer into the main room, I was relieved to see Romani was curled up in the quilts next to Charlie, fast asleep. Her bow and empty quiver were lying beside her, and that confirmed my earlier thought that they had both snuck out last night to get in more archery practice, but why they would do so in the middle of the night was confusing me to no end.

It wasn't until brief movement caught my eye until I realized that Grasshopper was still here and awake, as he was sitting at our table digging through the travel pack he usually had slung across his back. He had a rather impressive amount of masks in a pile to the left of the pack, and on the right I could see several different unlit explosives and bottles and what appeared to be one of those pictographs. I could see the pack held even more things, but had no clue what they were.

A flicker of light drew my attention away, and my eyebrows nearly disappeared into my hairline.

A bright yellow fairy was slowly floating in a circle around the top of the room, and to be quite honest it was the first fairy I've actually ever laid eyes on. They weren't common around the Ranch, and while I've heard of people having fairy companions or seeing a fairy, I just never had the luck before now to see one for myself.

They certainly were as pretty as I heard they were. I took a step back just in case the fairy happened to swivel in my direction and see me. It'd be a little awkward to get caught in my nightgown spying on them.

As I studied him further, I noticed that the sword and shield that had been strapped to his back since I had met him – he hadn't even bothered to take them off during our lemonade break and dinner – had also been taken off and set down onto the floor next to his feet.

Without the shield or pack covering his back, I took a moment to study the boy that had visited us originally to find his horse, but stuck around after. He was definitely skinnier looking than Romani, but the way his tunic fit him I could tell he was rather built for his age. I wondered if those muscles would become larger and more defined as he got taller and older, or if they'd just become more defined and he'd stay lean.

Biting my lip, I watched as the fairy suddenly jolted towards him only to plop down on a mask nearby him. His head tilted in her direction before he shrugged and reached into his pack, this time pulling out a small wallet. Opening it and carelessly dumping the contents out in front of him, he began counting the rupees, shoving each color into its own little pile.

He had quite a bit of money saved up, and I began to think about what he could possibly do for a living. While I had thought earlier he might've been a travelling farmhand looking for hire, mostly due to his adept skills at egg gathering and moving bales of hale and heavy bags of oats around, and the way he kept a sword and shield with him at all times.

My view had been changed when I saw the collection of masks and other things in his pack, and now I wasn't really sure what to think of what he might do. Maybe he was just a simple adventurer? Although, what could make a teenager his age want to travel the world, let alone carry that much stuff everywhere?

Twenty minutes later found me standing in front of my mirror again, fresh out of the bath with a brush going through my hair. I could hear Romani chattering away with the boy downstairs, though the wall muffled the conversation. As I gave one last stroke and set the brush down, I stared at myself in the mirror for a moment.

Perhaps it was the fact my sister and I looked so alike, with our red hair and sapphire colored eyes, that the boy felt the need to give me those intense looks every time our eyes met. But if that was the case, why didn't he give those looks towards her? She was certainly more talkative with him than I was, and she had spent the entire day and probably night practicing archery with him and dragging him around the Ranch.

As I heard a thump downstairs followed by Charlie barking his lungs out, I finally turned away from the mirror and left the bathroom. As I made my way downstairs, Charlie came flying past me with the boy's hat in his mouth, and my eyes widened as Grasshopper came charging around the corner of the stairs and up after him.

He noticed I was standing there a little too late, and we ended up colliding and falling over onto the stairwell pretty hard. I could hear Charlie at the top of the steps giving muffled barks with the hat in his mouth.

We stared at each other, both of our eyes pretty wide. Now that he didn't have that hat on his head, I could see more of his haircut. His bangs were short and framed his face, but the rest of his hair was long and had to go at least down to his shoulder blades if the bit falling over his shoulder was any real indication of how long it truly was.

I'm sure I already resembled a tomato from being run into, but his face had just started to turn pink. I noticed his blush started with the tip of his nose and ears, and then slowly started to cross his cheeks until his full face began turning pink, and then a deeper pink into red.

I opened my mouth to say something, but he jolted to his feet and hauling himself down the stairs and out of our house with an amazing burst of speed.

Still blushing, I sat there and stared at the spot he had been for a couple seconds until I heard Romani's loud laughter as she cracked up. I glanced towards her, watching her nearly fall off the chair she was sitting in laughing at me. I noticed the fairy from earlier had been sitting on her head, but when she almost took the tumble off the chair had moved to float around my sisters head.

"Good morning, Sis!" She managed to say between laughs, and the fairy finally let out a small laugh of its own. I picked myself off the stairs then, turning to look up at Charlie, my eyebrows furrowing into a somewhat strict expression.

The dog noticed the look on my face and his ears instantly drooped. "Charlie, come here." I demanded, smoothing down my clothing. The small dog slowly made his way over with the hat, giving me a sad look. "You know it's not right to take our guests things, and you nearly got both of us hurt making him chase you up the stairs like that." Charlie let out a whine, and then dropped the hat onto the step in front of me.

I sighed and patted him on the head. "You're a good boy, but don't do it again, alright?" His ears perked back up and let out a happy bark as I picked up the hat. I made a face at the dog drool on it before carrying it down the rest of the stairs towards my sister and the fairy.

Giving them a glance, I turned towards the doorway leading out and could see Grasshopper standing next to Epona, petting the horse on the head softly. "I'm going to go give this back. Romani, would you please gather any dirty clothes you want washed for me? I'm going to do the laundry real quick after breakfast." I asked my sister as I took a towel and got most of the dog drool off the boy's hat.

"Okay! C'mon Tatl!" She hopped off the seat and ran upstairs, the fairy zipping along after her.

As I stepped outside, Epona snorted in my direction and he turned to face me. "Good morning, Grasshopper." I smiled at him, before looking down at his hat. "I tried to get most of Charlie's saliva off of it." I held it out towards him.

Grasshopper blinked at me before taking a few steps forward until he was directly in front of me, then took the hat from me with a nod. As I looked down at him, I noticed that he while he was definitely shorter than I was; he was at least half a foot taller than my sister was.

He continued to look at me, before the tip of his nose and ears turned red again and he rubbed at the back of his head sheepishly. Figuring he was still embarrassed about running into me earlier, I smiled at him. "Don't worry about the stairs. I've gotten knocked over worse by Romani when she's had a little bit too much sugar."

A few more blinks at me, and then he nodded again hastily, hands fidgeting at his sides. "Will you be staying at our Ranch again today?"

He turned to look at Epona for a few seconds, the foal chewing away at a small block of hay, and then nodded at me. "I'm planning on doing some chores after breakfast, and then working on getting the cows milked and the milk bottled for delivery tonight. Would you like to help?" I asked, hands clasping in front of me at my waist.

My response was another nod, followed by a smile. It was then Romani came flying out of the house, dirty clothes clutched to her. Tatl – as I heard she was called earlier - flew after her at a much slower pace with a small sock in her grip.

"Huff! Urgh! W-wait!" It squeaked, and Romani skidded to a halt next to me and Grasshopper, swiveling around on one of her feet. "You dropped this!" Tatl floated closer and upwards a bit before dropping the sock onto Romani's pile. "Thanks!" My sister replied, grinning wide. She gasped suddenly, realizing something.

"I forgot to introduce you two earlier!" Romani swung around towards me, the sock that had just been placed on top of the pile of clothes she was holding flying off and landing at Grasshoppers foot.

"This is Tatl! She's Grasshopper's friend," My sister bounced in place, oblivious to the fact she was dropping clothing left and right. "And this is my sister, Cremia!" Tatl attempted to fly down and under to pick up the same sock as before, but let out a tiny squeak as another sock fell on top of her.

"Romani! Be careful!" I quickly leaned over, carefully picking the sock off the fairy and the one off the ground at the same time. Tatl flitted upwards again, hovering around Link. "It's alright, Miss. I'm used to worse things landing on me traveling with Link!"

Storing the boy's actual name away, and deciding to start actually thinking of him by that name, I smiled at her. "It's a pleasure to meet you, but I'm still sorry for the sock landing on you." "Oh, it's really no problem. Thank you though!" Tatl bounced up and down for a second in thanks. Romani scooted away from the three of us to dump the clothing she was holding in the hamper, then ran back and snagged both socks from me before tossing them towards the hamper.

She still missed.

"… I'll get them later!" She quickly said when I went to tell her to go pick them up. With a sigh, I shrugged it off. "I'm going to start breakfast now, it shouldn't take too long to finish."

Romani and Link each nodded in agreement, and as I walked back in the house I heard Romani start barraging the other with questions about his horse, to which Tatl would respond.

True to my word, breakfast only took about ten minutes or so to prepare and cook. It was simple, like yesterday's breakfast, but both Link and Romani started stuffing their faces as soon as the food was served.

I ate my own food at a much slower pace, stopping every couple of bites to take a drink from my glass of water. Romani was attempting to explain to Link how we milked our cows each year. "First we get them all happy by giving them lots of oats and hay and apples and stuff, and then we give them a good brushing and then we talk to them while we're getting the buckets set up and milking them! I wanna see you milk a cow, Grasshopper!" She laughed at the expression on his face.

"That will depend if he actually wants to do the milking part, Romani." I placed another forkful of food in my mouth, chewing as she pouted at me. Link managed to straighten his expression out after a moment, beginning to shovel food into his mouth again.

Once the three of us had finished our meal, I collected the plates and made my way over to the sink. Setting our most recent plates on the counter beside it, I reached into the cupboard below the sink for some soap and a wash cloth. I grabbed a small drying towel as well, placing each of them next to the dishes on the counter.

"I'm going to go introduce Grasshopper to Mamamu!" Romani called, yanking the boy out of the house after her. "Don't get too crazy with the dogs, Romani!" I called out, not knowing if she was still in range to hear me or not. My sister goes to Mamamu's racetrack at least once a week, and has a grand time chasing the dogs around or getting the dogs to chase her, as well as betting on which dog would make it around the race track and cross the finish line first.

I just hoped she wouldn't get too competitive with Link over dog racing.

It took me a few minutes longer then it usually did to finish with the dishes, as I kept getting distracted by my thoughts and accidentally placing a cleaned and dried plate back into the water thinking it wasn't one I'd washed before. But once the dishes were all finally cleaned and dried off, I carefully stacked them in the cupboard. Pulling the cork out of the bottom of the sink, I watched it drain for a few seconds before turning and plucking the dirty towel off the counter to take with me as I went to do the laundry.

Laundry wasn't too hard of a chore to do, and I found it actually quite relaxing when I did it on a warm and sunny day like today. I could hear faint cheering coming from Mamamu's side of the Ranch, and giggled. Picking up the socks that Romani had forgotten earlier, I placed them with the towel I had just used inside the hamper and moved to fill the basin up with fresh water. There was a small box sitting next to the basin where I kept some soap for washing the clothes with, a rolled up line with a hook on both ends, and a box of clothes pins. I took out the line first, hooking one end to a small metal ring in the side of our house, and then walked the short distance over to the barn to hook the other end into another small ring on the barns wall.

Making sure the line wouldn't accidentally come off on either side when I started putting wet clothes on it later; I gave it a few tugs before figuring it was okay.

While I was washing the clothes in the basin, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye on the side of the house. I ignored it until I had begun pinning the washed clothes up to dry, and took a moment to glance over towards the wall. I could see there were several arrows embedded into the wood, and that made me wonder again about what my sister and Link had been up to last night. Usually she didn't get so careless with the arrows, as I remember the only time in the past she's hit something other than a balloon - which usually dropped the arrow right under it so she could pick it back up easily – it was usually the tree.

Once I got the last piece of clothing hung up, I took a moment slowly easing the arrows out of the wall. They were only far enough into the wall to get the tip of the arrowhead stuck, to which I was thankful, as I didn't really want to have to break the arrows and dig the arrowhead out of the wood later.

With a small collection of arrows held carefully in one hand, I used the other hand to drain the basin and put the soap away and close the box. I then picked the hamper up so I could go inside and put it and the spare arrows away.

When that was done, I came back outside and peered over towards the entrance to Mamamu's racetrack. I didn't think either of them were going to come out soon, so I decided I would get started on fixing up the cows' food.

I moved the planks locking the doors shut and swung a door open, smiling as the cows glanced up towards me. A few cows gave me a moo in greeting; the others just shuffled around or kept on lightly snoozing where they sat.

I patted the nearest cow on the head as I moved towards the area where Link had stacked the hay and oats the other day. Every time we had to make a milk delivery – especially when we had to deliver Chateau Romani - I made sure either by myself or with Romani's help to fill up the food troughs inside the barn with a mixture of hay, apples, oats, and carrots.

Father had always told me if you kept your cows healthy and content, and treated them to a good meal just before milking began, you'd get better milk than usual. I took his advice to heart; always making sure the cows had plenty to graze on, and that we fed them their favorite treats and meals the day of the milking.

I knew it made a difference, because every time I delivered milk to the town, I'd always get comments from the buyers how the milk tasted delicious and it was definitely the best in Termina. Last year while the owner of the Milk Bar was thanking me and paying for the delivery, he let it slip the Gorman Brother's milk tasted very watered down and he wasn't too keen on buying milk from them.

While I was filling the troughs, one of the doors was squeaked open. Romani hopped inside with a wide grin on her face, and Link slowly wandered in after her with a bland expression. "I totally kicked Grasshopper's butt at doggy racing, Sis! Six races in a row!" She laughed at the boy before walking over towards me and the troughs. She patted one of the Romani Cows a couple times, it mooing at her in response, before grinning towards me. "Mamamu wants to know if I can help her give the doggies a bath later... Can I pleeeeeeeeease? They're so cute!"

I found it hard to resist my sisters pleading expression, and laughed quietly before nodding. "Once we get the wagon loaded later and I'm headed off to town, sure." "YES!" She pumped both hands in the air, nearly smacking poor Tatl out of the air as the fairy flitted past.

The fairy let out a chirp at her in response, to which Romani quickly apologized.

Link was looking around the barn, and when he noticed I was looking in his direction he gave me a questioning look before gesturing around him. I glanced into the feeding troughs next to me, which had already had hay and treats put into them. "Would you mind helping me and Romani fill the top part of the trough with oats?" I smiled towards him.

He nodded quickly, scooting over towards the stack of oat bags. He picked one up, wobbling slightly as he held it in his arms, and then hastily walked over in my direction.

I helped him open the top of the bag, and the three of us each took a handful of oats, tossing them in with the rest of the food and mixing it up a bit so the cows weren't eating one solid layer after another.

It took us a while to get the last of the oats mixed in with everything else, but we managed to finish without any problems. I brushed my hands off onto my skirt, pausing to pick a bit of hay that had somehow got stuck in Romani's hair out and tossing it back into the trough.

"Now we just have to let the cows eat for a bit and then we'll be ready to get the buckets and bottles ready for milking. Give them an hour, maybe? They eat rather slowly after all…" I reached over to give one of the cows a few pats on its neck.

My sister tilted her head to the side before stretching her arms and crossing them behind her head. "Are you going to milk the cows with us, Grasshopper?" She grinned at him, and I couldn't help but give a small laugh as the expression from earlier appeared again on his face.

He didn't look all that excited at the prospect of having to milk cows, and I clasped my hands in front of me. "If you don't want to, it's perfectly fine with me. You have done enough helping us with getting the food ready today and you helped with the chores yesterday." I smiled at him.

His entire body seemed to relax once I spoke, and Romani just stuck her tongue out at him.

"How about while we are waiting, you explain to me why there were several arrows stuck in the side of our house?" I turned to look at Romani.

The look on her face was priceless.


End file.
